Overflow (23 March 2022)

Engineer Jansen’s Triumphs: this water used to flood our land, up to, and into the garage. No more!

And this is only a medium rainfall, if it really downpours it floods.. So the concrete channel will be doubled.

This is when it rains hard and or long, and the land behind us gets waterlogged, and builds up behind the water tunnel. Before that water just drained into the tunnel, flowing towards our house. Even though the tunnel is blocked up some water seeped through into the garage.

So, engineer Jansen built another wall in the tunnel, invisible in the photo, but it's on the right of the overflow channel inside the tunnel. Secondly, the water now overflows via these channels, so most of it does not enter the tunnel any more, and is directed towards a newly dug canal in our land, flowing onto the land of the neighbour.

Canales: Dutch people do waterworks

When it rains here it pours, as you obviously will have read in the past, *here*. Yes you have.

The Dyke

Much of the trouble is due to a barranco that should drain away rainwater from the hills, via a terraced campo behind us. Gaps in the walls surrounding those campos drain the water to the next terrace. However, the upper campo has a collapsed wall, so quite a lot of water drains onto the road there, eventually ending up at our entrance. 

We asked the nephew of the owner to close the gap, as he’s into the business of moving earth with digging machines. He said "it's my uncle’s land!". We knew that, and he’s living in Barcelona (really).

We asked him to move some earth against the gap if he had a machine here. He said yes, but nothing happened, even when his diggers were here and I asked again. 

Also, officially, asked the ayuntamiento to do something about it. No reply. Nada. 

Okay, be that way. So, we put up a dyke:

3 Drains

Next step: we made 3 drains across the road, draining water away to the side. Many roads here have concrete channels across the road with a metal grid, to get rid of water:

Drain 1 of 3

We made drain nr. 1 at the entrance of the property, draining away into the canal we had dug:

Spot the nice reflectors? In Spain the right side has orange reflectors, white on the left. NL has red reflectors right.

Drain 2 of 3

In the middle of our bypass canal number two:

Drain 3 of 3

And finally canal nr. 3:

Channel and overflow

And, finally, deepen the existing draining channel in our land to the overflow opening in our lowest wall:

The rains may come!

hm, careful what you wish for now.

Rain. Again. Back to the drawing board.

We're back where we started. Another heavy rain, again a waterfall in our back yard, again the road washed away, and the Endesa electric cable visible. But the deltawerk at the back has held! No water through our back gate! Oh, and the steps to the upper orchard are washed free from soil too. Which enables me to put the second one really horizontal, this time.

(Vain) attempt to direct the water off the road.

Another vain attempt.

And the result a few hours later.

But this one held! No water entered our back gate.

At least I can now put the second step horizontal.

Before the deluge we build Deltawerkjes

Heavy rain is predicted, up to 100 mm per m²! Oh dear. Better be prepared a bit.



When it rains heavily the water from the road nears the back gate. It has not been coming through, but better prevent that anyway. Same for the road around. A small dyke of sand (many wheelbarrow loads, actually!) and some old concrete blocks to gently direct the water away...?

Lluvia - Rain - and the road

When it rains here it sometimes pours. And not just on us, b=ut on all our hinterland as well. Meaning that a lot of water is coming downhill. See below pictures for what happened.

And then you cannot leave by car, nor can your neighbours. Well, he was worse off, because he ran his car through the water in one of the river crossings, and his car stopped, and needed towing away.

Our neighbour Melchor, a kilometer away, has a roadbuilding company, and he built our road in the first place. He promised to drop by the next day, Monday. But didn't. Tuesday: "please don't forget us". Nada. The neighbour went to talk to the Ayuntamiento (town hall), as he thought that even if this is our road, and private terrain, the council is responsible for these repairs. They promised to drop by on Wednesday. But, didn't. The road still being not a road very much. In the afternoon suddenly our road building neighbour showed up. He had a death (a drowning?) in his family, and could not come earlier. Ok, this needs one truckloads of gravel and sand, and another with coarser gravel for the big holes. He could do that tomorrow morning. Meanwhile, the Ayuntamiento promised to come the next morning, and see what to do. We were a bit at a loss. Wait for the Ayuntamento, get it done on their budget, but not knowing when, or let Melchor do it, and pay. He estimated the cost at 300€ total. We decided to wait till the next morning. If no Ayuntamiento we'd ask him. When he had left 10 minutes, we thought "better let him do it, and be sure that it's done". So, Whatsapped him to ask him to do it, and that we had a lot more faith in him than in the council. Immediately: we'll be there tomorrow morning at 8:30.

Fifteen minutes later: a digging machine. Are you Ovimofit? No, Ayuntamiento. Hm. We had just asked Melchor to do it. We were sorry, and was this inconvenient for him? He called his boss. Who told him to make the road passable for the neighbour. But, that would mean just moving about some existing sand, while these holes needed filling with coarser material, as Melchor had proposed. So we told him: please no. More phone calls to the boss, but eventually he left.

Just a bit past 8 the next morning (Thursday) the digger and truck loads sand ad gravel arrived, and were put in place. He was so kind as to dig a shallow trench next to the road, to hopefully channel the water next time.

Rio Antas - La Cajete, as it is about once a year / every few years

The field behind us is walled, but overflows. Onto the new Endesa electric pylon, yes.

Upper part of our garden: inundated. Trying to divert the water out with some cleverly placed stones. Yes, that worked.

Hm. Yes, that is(was) our road. For us, and for the neighbours. The old pool was automatically filled.

Yes, that is the new in-ground Endesa cable. Did not expect to see that again so soon. Probably the earth there was still soft, and was washed away first. And no, Endesa did not come to help us. So much for allowing parties to do tyhings on your property, leaving you with the shit.

Canal along the road, to try and get the water to use that, next time.